JNU protest: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said the Narendra Modi government was imposing right-wing RSS ideology on the student community in India.

JNU protest: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said the Narendra Modi government was imposing right-wing RSS ideology on the student community in India.

“They (the government) are trying to impose the flawed RSS ideology on students… to crush their imagination, their dreams,” Rahul Gandhi told reporters here after meeting President Pranab Mukherjee over the escalating student agitation in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi and elsewhere in the country.

Rahul Gandhi led a delegation of Congress leaders who submitted a memorandum to the President, expressing concern over the “scenes of utter lawlessness” which were “an affront to the democratic ideals of this country”.

“The scenes of utter lawlessness playing out on the premises of the court in the heart of the capital are an affront to the democratic ideals of this country,” the memorandum said.

“Journalists, students and teachers are being physically assaulted inside and outside the court premises by a BJP legislator and workers, while the police look the other way and the government remains complacent and silent,” it added.

The memorandum accused the BJP-led central government of lending tacit support to hoodlums.

“Such lawlessness, in defiance of a Supreme Court directive, on two occasions by the same set of people, some of whom are identified with the ruling dispensation on various fora, cannot but be without the tacit support, encouragement or at best, the indifference of the ruling establishment,” it read.

The Congress memorandum also expressed concern over the attack on journalists, saying it did not “bode well for democracy”.

“The attack on the journalists appears to be designed to intimidate and threaten the fourth pillar of democracy. This does not bode well for our democracy. This is unacceptable,” it said.

Rahul Gandhi last week visited the Jawaharlal Nehru University and met protesting students on the campus. He was strongly criticised by BJP president Amit Shah for siding with the “anti-national” elements.

Gandhi hit out at his detractors and said: “Nationalism runs in my blood. I have seen my family sacrifice for the nation again and again.”

“The Congress party and its leadership condemn any expression of anti-nationalism outright. Those indulging in such behaviour must be identified and dealt with strictly,” Gandhi said.